20th May 2019 - Andrew

We wake up late and pack and pick up our car - Fira is crazy, busy with the new cruise ships in the bay. After some confusion and difficulty I get the car (tiny toyota) and park it nearby. Then we head back into town and book some ferry tickets (another week’s plans laid!)

587 steps lead down to the harbour on a winding path (about 300m vertically), We walk down! The going is pretty tough as the spaces between steps are sloped. There are lots of tourists and donkeys (with pretty beaded saddles and bridles). The scent of donkey shit is redolent in the air. We go slowly and take pictures and eventually get to the old harbour below which we get some good fizzy fruit juice and sit by the water.

We brave the tourist shops some of which are ‘caved’ into the side of the cliffs. There are beautiful pictures of Santorini painted on old wood as well as all sorts of things made from volcanic pumice. Then we take the cable car back up (30 mins down - 2 mins up). As we head to our car we get some iced coffee and later ice-cream (bitter chocolate and pistachio were brilliant).

Then we drive. We get a bit lost and the narrow roadways and crazy Greeks are a bit challenging. Eventually we find a petrol station and head to Oia. Cara gets a bad migraine and we have serious GPS problems. Also I discover the coordinates for our Oia hotel are wrong.

20th May 2019 - Cara

When we have fetched the car we have brunch in a little restaurant with a pretty outside terrace (Elia Tavern). Greek portions are huge! So when we order mixed appetisers and Santorinian fava it’s a huge meal. The waiter shows us how to eat fava correctly - olive oil and lemon squeezed over (there are already raw onion slices and caper on top) and mix together - tasty but more A’s thing than mine. The mixed platter had dolmades, cheese saganaki (fried cheese), zucchini and tomato balls. We’re eating a lot of vegetarian here!

Cable car is terrifying - fast, tiny, hanging above a rocky precipice. There is a huge queue (winding out the building , down the street and round the corner) of cruise ship people waiting to cable car down. Thank God we are not in it!

Narrow roads, coast road along the cliffs. The whole island is dry and desolate but also covered in grape vines. Only 32kms across but it has 16 wineries! A’s tablet is sent to kill me. It can't find us on the offline map - keeps on reverting to Piraous if I leave it alone for 5 seconds. And no paper maps :(

19 May 2019